GOP, DeSantis using FBI probe to attack Gillum

John Kennedy GateHouse Capital Bureau @JKennedyReport

Saturday

Oct 6, 2018 at 10:02 PMOct 6, 2018 at 10:02 PM

TALLAHASSEE — When Democrat Andrew Gillum recently paused his campaign for governor to attend a fundraiser for his former chief-of-staff — who is looking to succeed him as Tallahassee mayor — Republicans were waiting.

Outside a law firm, two blocks from the state Capitol, a few activists waved signs, “Guilty Gillum,” and “Got Ethics?” while Gillum slipped by them quietly and entered the event.

From the streets of his hometown to the campaign trail, an FBI probe of possible corruption in Tallahassee city government has become an attack line for Republicans in the drum-tight race’s closing weeks.

“Sure, we’re going to keep it alive,” said Stephen Lawson, a DeSantis spokesman. “The more voters learn about this case, the more they become convinced that something isn’t right.”

Gillum has said little lately about the investigation and declined to speak to Gatehouse Media about the case.

But the mayor has said repeatedly that the FBI has told him he is not a target of the investigation, was never named in any subpoenas, and last month released personal records involving travel with lobbyist-friends to Costa Rica trip and New York City, trips figuring in both the federal probe and a state ethics investigation.

There’s no indication that results of either case will be made public before the Nov. 6 election.

But with the increasingly heated, nationally watched governor’s race still cast as a toss-up in many polls, Republicans are stepping-up their focus on the matter, adding it to blasts aimed at damaging Gillum on the economy, health care and even on how he responded to a hurricane as Tallahassee mayor.

The Republican Governors Association already has posted a digital ad on the federal probe, and Gillum’s campaign recently condemned what it called a stream of “smear tactics” by the DeSantis side.

But even some allies acknowledge the controversy is something of the mayor’s own making.

“On a micro level, he’s probably mishandled the response,” said Steve Vancore, a Tallahassee pollster and political consultant who works with Democrats. “In his primary race, it didn’t matter, because none of the other Democrats thought he was going to win.

“But now, DeSantis is deploying a serious attack on him,” he added.

A member of the Tallahassee City Commission since 2003, Gillum has been Tallahassee’s mayor the past four years. His finance director for that mayoral campaign was lobbyist and longtime friend Adam Corey, who accompanied Gillum and his wife to Costa Rica in May 2016, and later joined the mayor on a trip to New York City in August 2016.

In New York, Gillum and Corey met with three undercover FBI agents posing as out-of-town developers looking to invest in Tallahassee property in a government-backed community redevelopment district.

Corey had arranged an earlier meeting in Tallahassee with the trio — while he was in Costa Rica with Gillum.

The New York trip also came just two months after a City Commission vote — which Gillum did not take part in — that expanded district boundaries to include properties eyed by the undercover agents.

Corey, who was central in connecting Gillum to the FBI agents, was a major player in Tallahassee politics for several years and got district help in 2013 to convert an old city power plant into a downtown restaurant, with Gillum’s vote.

But since the FBI investigation became public last year — and a subsequent Florida Commission on Ethics complaint was filed against Gillum — Corey has kept a low profile. And Gillum has severed ties with him.

Gillum earlier said, “I had a trusting relationship and I felt like I allowed people around me who were acquaintances of (Corey’s) because I trusted him. And it appears that if these guys were here for an investigation, that the only way they got to me was by leveraging my friendship with Adam.”

Gillum also tried to cool speculation last month by releasing records from the New York and Costa Rica trips after he met privately with ethics commission investigators. But these records may have given DeSantis more firepower.

Receipts showed Gillum and his wife stayed at a $1,400-a-night luxury resort with Corey and other couples, but paid cash, producing a bank receipt showing he withdrew $400 cash to help cover their four nights’ lodging.

His campaign later said the couple paid a total $900 for the stay — with the bank withdrawal supplementing the couple’s cash-on-hand. But DeSantis has seized on the $400 withdrawal.

“So you tell me how you’re able to get a luxury Costa Rica villa for $400? I want to know who your travel agent is,” DeSantis said at a Pinellas County campaign stop.

The bank statement showing the cash withdrawal also included a not fully redacted $15,000 deposit into his checking account. Drawing more questions, Gillum’s campaign said the money was simply a deposit into the checking account from a family savings account at another bank.

Meanwhile, in releasing records, the Gillum campaign said the New York trip also involved a ticket to Broadway’s “Hamilton.”

After refusing to acknowledge for more than a year to Tallahassee Democrat reporters that he’d attended the show, Gillum last month said he got the ticket from his brother, Marcus, who accompanied him.

Gillum said his brother swapped a ticket to a Jay-Z concert with Corey for the Hamilton ticket — although Corey’s lawyer denies that.

“As far as what his explanations are, they make absolutely no sense,” said Erwin Jackson, a Tallahassee businessman and frequent city government critic, who filed the ethics commission complaint against Gillum.

“He has no real receipts for a lot of this. And why is that? Because he’s lying,” Jackson said.

Gillum, though, denies such accusations, pointing out that as mayor, he led the City Commission’s move to post on the city’s website 197,000 documents, email, and other records turned over to the FBI.

And a search warrant made public in February showed agents were looking at another city commissioner, Scott Maddox, a former Florida Democratic Party chairman, and payments between him and his former chief of staff, who represented businesses seeking commission support.

Maddox has denied wrongdoing.

But the swirl of controversy around the investigation — which has riveted Tallahassee for more than a year — now is getting its turn on the state’s campaign stage. In the rush of an election homestretch, it’s not an easy story to follow.

And that may help DeSantis.

“I think it’s a desperate shot in the dark,” said Rep. Evan Jenne, D-Dania Beach. “Republicans are taking pieces of the story, and just throwing it out there, hoping it makes Andrew look bad.”

“People know each other in Tallahassee, in government and business. And they have relationships, and their names overlap,” added Jenne, who went to college in Tallahassee and has served a decade in the Legislature.

“But I just know that Mayor Gillum would not have thrust himself into the spotlight of a governor’s race, if he’d done something wrong.”

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